Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to ensure that his Department and its agencies remove all internal covid-19 related policies, restrictions and mask mandates.

Throughout the pandemic, all Civil Service employers have followed Government guidance in setting out their internal COVID-19 related policies. This includes complying with the Working Safely during Coronavirus (COVID-19): Guidance which sets out the key actions organisations should take to protect employees and customers in order to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading in workplaces, along with carrying out health and safety risk assessments that include the ongoing risk from COVID-19.

On 21 February 2022, the Government published its COVID-19 Response: Living with COVID-19. This document sets out how and when the remaining restrictions will be lifted in England. Government guidance was subsequently amended, including the Working Safely guidance.

The Government’s Working Safely guidance, which was launched on 24 February 2022, continues to require organisations to carry out a risk assessment which includes the risk from COVID-19. It also sets out additional actions organisations can take to protect employees and customers in the workplace, such as ensuring adequate ventilation, frequent cleaning, asking people to wash their hands frequently and asking people with COVID-19 to stay away. The guidance advises that people continue to wear face coverings in crowded and enclosed settings where they come into contact with people they do not normally meet, when rates of transmission are high. Civil Service employers will continue to follow this guidance and align their policies accordingly.